We have some goats back on the farm now that fair is over.. We bought one from one of the kids in 4H and they went right to work keeping the trees trimmed up nice and high so they are easy to mow under.. I’m thinking that I may need some more and go in to business as a tree trimmer.. All natural, recycles the tree material, only produces a little bit of methane when you scare them..
Steve’s Tree Trimming Service
August 20th, 2010 by Steve5 Ways You Can Help An Animal Rescue
July 19th, 2010 by Steve
We have always tried to find ways to help local charities and animals in need. Here are our top 5 ways that you can help too.
- Tweet and Share : Most charities these days have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Follow and Friend your local animal charity. When they make an announcement or a request for help share it and retweet it. You might not be able to help every time, but by spreading the word you are giving more people an opportunity to help.
- Volunteer : Money is always tight, but there are times when you have some spare time that could go a long way toward helping those that work full time with animals in need. Give them a call, they can always use help walk dogs, bathing cats, or even just helping to clean out stalls.
- Become a Foster Home : We recently sent our latest foster dog to her forever home. Fostering can be a fantastic way to help. You can select the type of animal you want to foster, how long you are available to foster, and most importantly, provide much needed space for local shelters to allow them to help even more animals. Many local animal rescues have foster programs, call your and find out how you can help give an animal a temporary home.
- Donate Treats, Food, and Supplies : How many times have you seen a buy one get one free sale at the store? Take advantage of it and buy one for your pet and set aside the other to go to your local rescue or shelter. From dog food to treats and toys, almost anything is appreciated and allows them to spend their very precious dollars on other needs.
- Cash : Money, the driving force behind nearly everything is the single most needed item at every animal rescue. Even a donation as little at $20 can help buy a bag of food or a bale of hay or shampoo or cleaning supplies. Cash is also one of the primary reasons we created Animal Charms. By donating at least 10% of every sale we are doing our part to help as many animals in need as we can.
This is obviously a short list and there is plenty more that we all can do. So let’s hear what you do and any other great suggestions you might have.
New Color Photo Pet Jewelry
July 8th, 2010 by Steve
Color Pet Photo Jewelry
We are proud to announce our newest product, color pet photo jewelry!
I have been working on these for a couple of months now trying to get them up from cheap faire jewelry to real quality jewelry. The first thing you will notice about our pendants is that these are pictures of actual pendants that we have made. These are not the photoshopped pendants with an image overlaid to make them look good. No one else makes them like we do, and no, I’m not spilling the secret to awesome color photo jewelry 
Prototype 1
Our first pendants looked like what other people make. They looked like this. They weren’t terrible, but you could only really see them in just the right lighting conditions.
Next we tried using some very light, aluminum, pendants. These gave us a good picture, but the jeweler in me just can sell them and call them jewelry.
We finally developed our own process and create the pendants you see here. I wish I could take better photos of them, but I am convinced that these are the best photo pendants available. Great color, nice weight, and they feel like real jewelry.
We are currently offering our pendants in 3 shapes, standard dog tag, round, and heart shape. As we get production sorted out and we start making more of these great pendants we hope to add more shapes and even start offering them in sterling silver or 14k gold. If you would like to have a pendant made from either metal send me an email and maybe we can use your necklace as a prototype.
Animal Charms Donates Over $1,000 to Animal Charity
June 28th, 2010 by Steve
Valyn is so excited about this he actually opened an eye!
We’ve finally reached our fist real milestone, $1,000 in donations to animal rescues, charities and shelters!
Our goal has always been to help as many different animals and rescues as possible and we are thrilled to announce that we have finally reached the $1,000 mark in donations. I had hoped that we would reach this number much earlier this year, but with the way things are in the current economy I’m happy we have been able to give as much as we have.
We started Animal Charms specifically to help us raise more money to give to animals in need and we are thrilled that we are starting to be able to have an impact.
As always, as least 10% of every sale is donated to an animal rescue or charity and we tend to focus on the smaller, local, no kill shelters and rescues rather than donating to the larger national organizations. We also offer special coupon code plans for charities to help them get more from us by giving their supporters a discount as well. You can find out more about this program, which we are reworking right now, by emailing me through the contact form of giving us a call at the phone number listed on our contacts page.
If you run a charity and would like us to put you on our donation list, you can send me an email, again through the contact form or you can add your web site to our animal charity directory.
Beads, beads, beads!
April 12th, 2010 by Steve
Silver horse bead from Kera
Finally, we have found a line of sterling silver animal beads that we love. Kera makes a great line of beads and bead jewelry and we have set aside many of the animal themed beads for our friends here at Animal Charms.
Each bead is made in sterling silver and will fit any standard bead bracelet, Pandora, Troll, etc., or you can buy one of our bead bracelets here to start your new bracelet. These sterling silver beads are priced very well and like everything else we sell here at Animal Charms, 10% of each sale is donated to charity!
4H again
March 28th, 2010 by Steve
Brook and her baby goat
After our daughter finished her tenth year in 4H I must admit I was ready for a break. I love 4H and everything it stands for and teaches our kids, but after 10 years it was starting to become a job and being retired from there was a nice feeling.
And then our niece came to stay with us for the spring and summer. Being a city girl she hasn’t had a lot of exposure to life on a farm, and since we are all about working the farm and critters and pets and learning by doing, we tossed her feet first in to 4H.
I think she might learn to like it.
Pets on Pendants Engraved Photos are Here!
March 11th, 2010 by Steve
Photo Engraved Pendant
Finally, after a lot of practice and preparation, Diane and I are thrilled to be able to offer photo engraving here at Animal Charms. The process is very simple, we take a photo of your pet, that you send to us, and we load it in to Photoshop for editing. We remove the background information, and trim the photo for the best look. Then a little bit of image magic and we are ready to load it in to our engraving machine. A short time later we have a stunning pet photo engraved on a metal pendant.
Your pendant is then polished up, a curb chain is added, and we package it up for shipping. In most cases we can have your pendant ready to ship to you in less than 48 hours. All of this for less than $50! You get the photo pendant, the 16″ curb chain, and the velour pendant pouch to store your pendant safely, all for less than $50! Sorry, I was channeling my inner Vince there for a second, I love these pendants that much.
Photos
There are some things to keep in mind when sending us a photo. Well lit, high contrast, photos work best. Closeups and photos with a lot of face detail help as well. The pendant here is of Gigi, my sister-in-law’s solid black Schnauzer. If we can make a solid black dog with a black nose and black eyes look this great, image on how great your pet will look on one of our pendants.
The Pendants
Currently we are engraving photos on simple metal pendants that have been rhodium plated. We are testing with solid silver pendants and are considering offering them in gold as well. If there is enough interest we will stock up and offer those as well.
Charity
Don’t forget, part of every single sale we make here is donated to an animal charity, this goes for our new Pets on Pendants jewelry line. 10% of every sale is set aside for an animal rescue or charity. We really appreciate all that those charities do and your purchases help us help them.
Order one today and get a photo of your pet that will last forever.
1st Ride of the Year
March 10th, 2010 by Steve
Spring has finally arrived here, sort of.
I can usually tell its spring when I start hearing Diane holler at me to come out and help with the horses. Time to fix fences that have been damaged during the winter, fix barn damage, and generally try to get the place cleaned back up after a few months of everything being buried under a sheet of white.
This spring we have a little more going on though. Our niece has come to live with us for a while and all she has talked about the last few weeks is learning to ride. So Sunday I found myself outside helping her hop up behind Diane for her first ride on a horse.
I think she liked it.
Greyhounds!
March 6th, 2010 by Steve
Omega
We were out doing our weekend shopping today and swung by PetCo to pick up some dog food (Our dogs love Nutro) and let our niece, Brook, take a look at some of the critters. Imagine our happy surprise to find a greyhound rescue group hanging out introducing people to greyhounds.
I know that there are a lot of greyhounds out there that need adoption simply because of their use as racing dogs. Once the dogs reach an age where they can no longer perform they are sent on their way. I think its great that American Greyhound has been able to step up and help. We got to meet with Carol, the Goshen Events Coordinator and she mentioned a great program where the greyhounds did time in prison. Or maybe it was a work release program, maybe we can get her to come by here and explain it better.
I have a huge soft spot for dogs. Doesn’t everyone? Maybe I have a bit more of a spot for greyhounds because one of my favorite old dogs, Jaba, was part grey and he was just a blast to watch run when we turned him out in the horse pastures. He was hand’s down the fastest dog I have ever lived with. If you can afford to donate, please head over and make a donation, I’m sending a check on Monday. If you are looking to adopt, or even foster, greyhounds make great family dogs.
And if you happen to be looking for a nice piece of greyhound jewelry, we have a few items in our greyhound section. I’m looking for more and hoping to find some greyhounds that aren’t in full race gear. If you use the coupon code A102L an extra 5% is set aside for American Greyhound and you get a 5% instant discount. How cool is that?
Free Shipping!!
February 18th, 2010 by SteveJust a short note to let our customers know that we now offer free shipping on every order over $100.. The shipping cost is automatically deducted during checkout, no coupon codes, no hassles, just free shipping!!
